Texting Kills: Cell Phone Use Impairs Drivers More than Alcohol

For someone who derives part of his living from writing about
smartphones, I'm paradoxically something of a cellphone curmudgeon -
indeed, a just plain telephone curmudgeon. I appreciate the utilitarian
value of telephony and related technologies, but I strenuously resist
the premise that being reachable by phone 24/7 wherever one might
happen to be is a good or desirable thing.

100 years ago acerbic lexicographer and self-styled cynic Ambrose Bierce
dismissed the telephone as "an invention of the devil which abrogates
some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his
distance." That was before long-distance telephone was a practical
reality.

Personally, there are times that I prefer not to be disturbed by
agreeable people, and I frequently leave my landline phone off the
hook. I much prefer email, which allows one to respond within one's own
time management priorities.

Bierce disappeared in Mexico in 1913, so I can only imagine with
considerable relish what he might have had to say about telemarketing,
let alone cellphones and what they've wreaked on our culture - people
in restaurants, movie theaters, business meetings, classrooms, or
virtually any other social situation disturbing others, or half (at
best) concentrating on the conversation while checking or sending text
messages, tweeting, checking and updating their Facebook page, and the
whole constant communication obsession that's called social networking,
but is ironically more the death of civilized sociality.

Mobile Phones at School

Last year, when Ontario's education minister Kathleen Wynne declared
that students should not be allowed to use their phones in class, my
first reaction was an incredulous "you mean they are currently
permitted to use them in class?"

Aside from the increasingly eclectic array of distractions from
activities that should be going on in class, cellphones open up a whole
new dimension of potential for cheating - Internet access, comparing
notes with other students, storage and retrieval of cribsheet data - so
why is the issue of banning active cellphones in the classroom even
controversial? There is absolutely no constructive educational
rationale for allowing active cellphone use or text messaging, let
alone cellphone cameras, in school classrooms.

Since so many students pack them these days (yet another
technological "necessity" that didn't exist 20 years ago), the
logistics of banning the phones' physical presence would probably be
impractical, but there should be zero tolerance, on pain of
confiscation, for having them turned on in class, with the parent
required to visit the school to retrieve confiscated devices. Another
possible measure would be an automatic two-grade mark deduction if
found with a cellphone turned on during a test.

Beleaguered teachers have more than enough to contend with in this
era where order, discipline, and respect have fallen by the wayside
without the added distraction of wireless communications and
surreptitious spycams adding to the chaos.

Technology in Its Place

I'm obviously not a technology Luddite, making the bulk of my living
working with and writing about computers, but I refuse to become a
tunnel-vision cheerleader for a laissez-faire takeover of our
lives by technology, and cellphones, while an excellent technology when
used responsibly with moderation and restraint, have vast potential for
abuse.

Faced with falling attendance partly due to boorish patrons keeping
cellphones turned on at the movies, the National Association of Theater
Owners is considering asking federal authorities for permission to jam
cellphone reception in an attempt to stop annoying rings and phone
conversations during films. Cellphone jamming is currently illegal in
both the US and Canada. Pity.

However, new technologies under development - like a paint that can
switch between blocking and allowing cellular communication by means of
a radio-filtering device that collects phone signals from outside a
shielded space, allowing certain transmissions to proceed while
blocking others - could help persuade regulatory authorities to change
their minds, and that solution might be made to work in classrooms as
well as cinemas.

A Safety Hazard

The mobile device related distempers discussed in the foregoing are
annoying antisocial phenomena representing a devolution of civilized
manners, but there's another aspect of communication obsession that is
a serious public safety hazard. In a study of 5,600 students conducted
by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and State Farm Insurance,
89% reported seeing teen drivers chatting on cellphones - an unsafe
activity not limited to teens. Insurance industry studies show that
drivers in general are four times more likely to be involved in
collisions while talking on cellphones.

Given actuarial data like that, why isn't cellphone use by drivers
in transit not universally banned?

Partly, I suppose, because while a recent survey found that 89% of
Canadians think too many motorists are driving while are distracted by
cellphones, et al., only 60% said they were willing to stop using
cellphones when driving.

The New York Times' Matt Richtel reported
last week that six years ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) "covered up hundreds of pages of research and
warnings" about driver distraction due to cellphone because, the
Times asserts, "of concerns about angering Congress."

...handsfree devices are no solution and may
actually make things worse....

Suppressed data included estimates that cell-phone-related driver
distraction had contributed to 955 fatalities and 240,000 motor vehicle
accidents in 2002 alone, warning that handsfree devices are no solution
and may actually make things worse by nurturing a false sense of less
risk from distraction.

The NYT report says that then NHTSA boss Dr. Jeffrey Runge
reluctantly agreed not to publish the information or the policy
recommendation due to "larger political considerations," i.e.: risk of
angering voters who like to use cellphones while driving, as well as
alienating the cellphone industry, after being told disclosure could
jeopardize billions of dollars of its financing if Congress perceived
the agency had crossed the line into lobbying.

The unreleased research findings reportedly included that at any
given moment, more than 1 million US drivers are talking on handheld
cell phones, and a 2008 survey by Nationwide Insurance found that 67%
of people admitted to using a cell phone while driving.

More Dangerous Than Drunk Driving

Driving while intoxicated has become so much of a social taboo that
most people recognize the acronym DUI (Driving Under the Influence)
used by police and prosecutors, but according to a growing body of
research and empirical observation, DWY and DWT are a potentially worse
public hazard than DUI - and should be just as socially
unacceptable.

DWY and DWT? That would be Driving While Yakking and
Driving While Texting (subcategory: Driving While
Tweeting) - the most pernicious consequences of pandemic addiction
to what amounts to digital crack. John Ratey, a Harvard psychiatry
professor specializing in the science of attention, told Richtel that
using digital devices gives you "a dopamine squirt."

According to a UK Transport Research Laboratory study commissioned
by the Royal Automobile Club Foundation, motorists sending text
messages while driving are "significantly more impaired" than ones who
drive drunk. The study showed texters' reaction times deteriorated by
35%, with a whopping 91% decrease in steering ability, while similar
studies of drunk driving indicate reaction time diminishment of a
relatively modest 12%. By that measure, DWT is three times as dangerous
as DUI and should logically be treated as severely, if not more so,
both under the law and in terms of social censure.

Another study conducted by the Eastern Virginia Medical School in
Norfolk, Virginia, presented to the Pediatric Academic Societies in
May, found teens using a driving simulator while sending text messages
or searching iPod menus changed speed, steered erratically, in, some
cases, ran over pedestrians, showing these behaviors clearly pose a
danger to drivers and others around them. Motor vehicle accidents are
the leading cause of death among people between 16 and 20, the most
prolific texting demographic, with teenage drivers four times more
likely to crash than older drivers even when not texting.

Update: "A driver is 23 times more likely to get into a car accident
if they text when they are behind the wheel of their vehicle, according
to research conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute
(VTTI)," according to a
news release dated 2009.07.28. Drivers are also 6x more likely to
crash while dialing their mobile phones.

Raising Awareness

it appears that a major public education and consciousness-raising
effort is in order. While drinking and driving is now pretty
comprehensively considered inappropriate and intolerable, texting while
driving is not, with an apparent disconnect between public conviction
and behavior. Reuters reported that while 83% of respondents in a
nationwide US survey said DWT should be illegal, one-quarter of US
cellphone users admit to texting while driving. Ongoing surveys by the
NHTSA show 85% of all auto crashes and 65% of all near-crashes result
from distracted driving.

Laws banning texting behind the wheel are relatively rare as yet.
Only a handful of US states have full or partial bans in place. In
Canada, Nova Scotia (my home province) and Newfoundland have banned use
of handheld cellphones (which would include texting) behind the wheel,
and British Columbia is considering such a ban.

However, while research data cited indicate that enacting laws
making cellphone use while driving illegal is just as important as our
now ubiquitous penalties for driving drunk, passing laws against
vehicular texting may not in itself be enough. A study conducted this
year by mobile technology firm Vingo found some of the worst DWT
offenders living in states where DWT is already banned or ban
legislation is pending. In Tennessee, an alarming 42% of drivers
surveyed admitted to indulging, compared with a slightly less horrific
26% of cellphone users nationwide. Vingo found 66% of drivers aged 16
to 19 - already the least experienced and most crash-prone cohort -
admitted to driving while texting, and despite more states enacting
bans and increased public awareness of high-profile DWT-related
accidents, people still drive while texting at the same rate as a year
ago.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, automobile accidents
are now the leading cause of death in women under the age of 35 -
another cellphone-prolific, texting-oriented demographic.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has determined that using
cellphones, even handsfree units (which are still legal here on in Nova
Scotia) in voice mode, increases crash risk fourfold, and texting -
which distracts visually, physically, and cognitively - increases risk
sixfold. The US National Safety Council advocates banning all cellphone
use by automobile operators, advising that the prudent course is to
turn the ringer off and stash the phone somewhere out of reach before
turning the ignition key.

Parents also need to get on the case. A survey by SADD (Students Against Destructive
Decisions) and Liberty Mutual Insurance Group found 52% of teens who
say their parents would be unlikely to punish them for driving while
text-messaging said they would continue doing so, compared with 36% who
believe their parents would penalize them.

The texting plague's calamitous consequences transcend the operation
of automobiles. Text messaging was also identified as causing of two
recent public transit disasters - a
train crash in Los Angeles that killed 25 people, and a 24-year-old
subway operator
in Boston admitting he'd been texting his girlfriend when he rammed
his train into one ahead of him, injuring almost 50 people.